I’ve spent a lot of time explaining to people what a blog is since I started A Penny’s Worth. Of course I talk about the etymology of the word (essentially a contraction of “weB LOG.”) The general consensus seems to be that a blog is basically “a journal other people can read.” On the one hand that makes it sort of like a column—democratizing the concept of “journalism”—but in another context, blogging can be like keeping a diary and publishing it if you’re not careful (or even if you are.) Is my life that fascinating? Well, frankly, yes it is. I can amuse myself for hours on end, with clever repartee and witty banter. And boy, what I had for breakfast! But that’s just me. And it does seem a frightful conceit; we even say so in APW’s Mission Statement (see above.)

So I try and make the things I write universal, at least in some way. But sometimes it’s tough. For example, I am going to be in San Francisco all this week on business. Five nights. That’s by far the most time I’ve spent away from the baby since she arrived. I mean, a week is 10% of her little life. I’m drafting this on the plane out, and I already miss her like the dickens—her little hands, her dark piercing eyes, the little non-verbal games we play, the way she smells, the way she holds onto my neck when I walk her around the apartment. It’s breaking my big old jaded heart.

The baby and I have a lot of non-verbal communication things going on. For one thing, I’m convinced that babies can see auras—a capacity most of us outgrow; have you ever noticed a baby like or dislike someone instantly for no apparent reason? Or known someone who is like a baby magnet?—and she likes mine. More tangibly, and this is uncanny, when I stick my tongue out at her, she sticks hers back out at me. This never fails to fill me with sheer delight. I mean, she’s 10 weeks old! How does she know that’s what I’m doing? Just thinking of that tiny little tongue darting out of her little milky mouth makes me want to get on the first plane home.

I love San Francisco, have friends there, and most of the ‘90s I made a point of getting out there at least once a year. But now I just don’t have much enthusiasm for it, if it means missing a whole week of my baby’s littleness. I mean, she’s just starting to smile.

So what’s the point here? See, that’s just it. There isn’t one. This is little more than a diary entry about missing my little sweetheart. (I mean, I’ll miss my wife too, but we’ve been apart before. And I can count on her remembering me when I come home.)

So anyway, more to come from San Francisco. I’ll see if I can’t make it more universal. Although now that I think about it, hokey as it sounds, a parent’s love for a child may be more universal than I’m giving myself credit for.